Wednesday, December 19, 2012

For the past four years, I have done myannualDisgruntledAlphabet and I looooove
doing it because it’s a great opportunity to vent while still having fun. I was
thinking this last time, though, that I really ought to make an alphabet that
reflects the true spirit of veganism and all the priceless personal bonuses we
reap by adopting it. It was less delicious to write - because I was born to
snark, apparently – but more reflective of veganism at its best, which brings
so much good into the world and into our lives.

A is for alignment,
because our values are in alignment with our actions and that is a really rare,
beautiful thing. A is also for the animals
because we can look at them in the eye and know that we are not harming them.

B is for the benefits
of veganism, of which there are myriad, from health advantages to a very
reduced ecological footprint, and many points in between.

C is for consistency
and compassion and clear conscience, each of which is a
renewable resource that fills our lives with meaning and depth.

D is for direct,
because if you want to create a long-lasting, positive change in the world
immediately, compassionate living is a direct pipeline to it.

E is for that exquisite
feeling of knowing that we are laying the groundwork for a new world through our
actions.

F is for full
potential: We are not making excuses for ourselves because we are truly
striving to do our best.

G is for gratitude
that we can live as vegans today without making any sacrifices but reaping an
abundance of rewards.

H is for the hens
whom we get to feed, pet and hold at animal sanctuaries without feeling guilty
or ashamed.

I is for inexpensive
because the least affluent people in the world are often vegan by default: whole
grains, legumes, local and seasonal vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds are
the most healthful way to eat (thus fewer doctor bills) and are usually much
more affordable than animal products and flesh.

J is for justice,
for knowing that we have integrated our convictions about fairness and equality
into our lives instead of just giving lip-service to them. J is also for the joy that comes from knowing this.

K is for kicking
the unnecessary habits that harm and kills others.

L is for love:
why would we kill when we could love and live with an attitude of abundance instead?

M is for more,
as in more inner-peace, more consistency, more gratitude, more honesty, more
passion.

N is for nomore disconnect between our deepest
values and our actions.

O is for our convictions, which give our lives purpose and meaning.

P is for the peace
we feel from practicing what we preach.

Q is for questioning
the status quo, which gives us so much strength and confidence to create
the compassionate, independent lives we want.

R is for rejecting
the habits that contradict our ethics.

S is for solutions:
we are living examples of people who are creating solutions to the destruction
animal agriculture wreaks and it also stands for the dynamic shift we are bringing to the world.

T is for truth,
because living with knowledge and self-honesty are liberating.

U is for undoing
the damage and the pride that comes from that.

V is for vegan
because that’s what it’s all about.

W is for wherever
we are, we can always do our best in that situation.

X is for X,
the mark we make on each day of the calendar until it’s our annual
veganniversary day of gratitude.

Y is for yes,
we can easily make a positive difference with our actions.

Z is for zealous
because sometimes we can be a little overly so but everyone has his or her
faults.It’s better to err in the
direction of passion over passivity, right?

Thursday, December 13, 2012

A kind of embarrassing truth about myself that I have
come to accept over the years is that I have a pretty cheerful, optimistic
nature. Why would this be embarrassing? As someone inclined toward the arts, with
a passion for the radical, a preponderance of black clothing, and the dark
coloring/pale skin combination that is such a perfect fit for goth-y
gloominess, I was always kind of an outcast amongst others of a similar bent. I
was born with a loopy (some would say zany) energy. I
definitely didn’t fit in with the pep squad but my temperament also clashed
with the perpetually sighing artists. What worked for me eventually was to find
friends who also defied categorization: depressive cheerleaders, happy poets,
stable performance artists, serene radical feminists. These friends have an
important place on my personal island of Misfit Toys and have made my journey
in life much less lonely.

Despite my essentially happy nature, though, I am
painfully aware of how much of the world rather, well, sucks. As vegans, we
know this all too well. Maybe the reason that I am pretty happy is that I’ve
always had an outlet. Whether I’ve been painting or writing, my thoughts have
been explored, processed and, finally, released. My annualDisgruntledAlphabet
is honestly therapeutic at this point and I fully encourage you to add your
favorite letters and corresponding gripes in the comments. We need to release
all this angst so we can get back to being the good examples we strive to be,
right? Or just to get it out of our system before embarking on a fresh new
year. In case you're thinking that I am making the case for why veganism sucks, I'm not. It is awesome but, as the expression goes, hell is other people. Maybe next week, I'll come up with a Cheery, Happy Vegan Alphabet for Optimists. For now, though, I present the 2012 Disgruntled Alphabet.

A is for Anatomy because, come on! Learn it. There is
a freaking world of difference between a tomato plant and a cow and NO, they
both don’t feel pain. We don’t live in a world in which we can pretend to not
know about sentience, neurological and circulatory systems, brain waves and so
forth. Anyone who asserts that plants feel pain – anyone who is older than,
say, five - is just illustrating how willing he or she is to abandon logic and
escape to the puffy, swirly kingdom of Magical Thinking [see M] instead.

B is for B.S., which I call whenever I hear a
variation of the “I was vegan for a week and then all my hair fell out, and
then my limbs atrophied, and then my organs started attacking each other and I
was put on life support because I have a really, really rare amino acid thing,”
story, which apparently happens more than would seem possible.

C is for the Caterer at the wedding, who very
thoughtfully and painstakingly prepared a spectacularly grey plate of boiled
broccoli and cauliflower on a bed of iceberg lettuce for your gustatory pleasure.

D is for Diversionary Tactics, which re-route us from
honest and thoughtful discussions about the ethics of eating animals to pulling
up a chair at the all-you-can-eat “lions-kill-gazelles-plants-feel-pain-what-about-the-Inuit-people?”
smorgasbord of random delights from Excuseistan.

E is for Eggs: I don’t care if they came from a virgin
meadow of the softest grass where the hens are serenaded by classical violinists
and gently massaged by the finest avian masseurs each day as they dine on
organic, free-range grubs and are lovingly tucked into bed each night by a
trilling Snow White herself. Eating eggs is unnecessary and exploitative but
keep dreaming up those sustaina-bull [see S] fairy tales all you like.

F is for Forgetting, because it’s embarrassing when
you forget that one of your friends is not quite vegan and it just dawns on you
after you said something pretty snarky about how gross it is to drink milk and
then it’s all awkward between you. Oops!

G is for "Get a Life!" which we are told that we don’t
have if we care about the billions of sentient, gentle beings who are abused
and slaughtered with each moment. Because one proves that one has a life by not
giving a damn, right?

H is for the Hassle you go through every year when family
members squabble over the annual dinner out together when your peevish great
uncle comes to town and you always end up eating a plain salad with nothing on
it at his favorite steakhouse anyway. You'd better be in that geezer's will.

I is for “I know that I shouldn’t say this to you, but
I couldn’t live without bacon.” Yes. You. Could.

J is for the Jack of All Trades who strikes up a
conversation with you about the Problems with Veganism at the annual company
holiday party: he’s a dietician, an anthropologist, a historian, an elite
personal trainer, a philosopher, a biologist and an expert on world cultures
all rolled into one. And you thought he was just an accountant.

K is for knife, which is yours but your roommate
sometimes uses it to cut meat and doesn’t see what the big deal is, anyway.

L is for Lighten Up, which we need to do because
needless suffering and slaughter isn’t really all that big of a deal, either.

M is for Magical Thinking, which brings omnivores a
whole host of interesting diversions, such as Plants and Their Feelings, All I Eat is
Happy Meat, Death is Life/Life is Death, By Eating Animals, I Am Showing My
Respect for Them and more. The realm of Magical Thinking is a shiny, happy
place that omnivores can skip off to whenever they don’t want to face the
reality of their habits. They can stretch out on a puffy cloud, float over a
crystalline pond and frolic with the glittery free-range unicorns any time they
like through their Magical Thinking escape hatch.

N is for Neurotic, because caring about what you put
into your mouth and spend money on is just so high-strung, isn’t it? Meat is a
metaphor for hot, carnal sex. We get it. We’re prudes. And you're a necrophile.

O is for Opinions, which we shouldn’t mistake for
facts, right? Like it is an opinion
that the life of a tomato and the life of a chicken are roughly equivalent
but it is a fact that plants and
animals have very different anatomies and physiological functions for
evolutionary reasons and purposes but let’s not let facts stand in the way of a
little romp in the land of Magical Thinking. Oooh! Glittery unicorns!

P is for Passive-Aggression, without which we wouldn’t
have hostile family meals, a persistent mispronunciation of the word vegan by your significant other, knowing
smirks between coworkers when you get the leather gloves in the Secret Santa
gift exchange, your brother-in-law describing veganism as a “lifestyle” with
little quotation marks that just seem so snarky with his stupid, mean fingers and
other really fun things like that.

Q is for Quack because, honestly, you can send me all
the wackadoo videos you want from that chiropractor talking about how soy will
turn boys into girls and how our “inferior protein sources” cause our brains to
shrink like thirsty little walnuts and how vegan children are all pre-diabetic
Children of the Corn and I still won’t believe you.

R is for Rights, which omnivores are pretty obsessed
with, as in their “right” to eat or do whatever they please as opposed to another
being’s right to live free from intentional harm. Clearly the “right” to a pepperoni
and cheese pizza is more worthwhile and valuable than a sentient individual’s right
to sovereignty and self-protection.

S is for Sustaina-bullshit because it defies
mathematics and basic logic to believe that you can eat as much grass-fed,
organic, free-range blah-blah-blah as you like without an ecological impact
as long as you buy it from cute little heritage farms. A form of Magical
Thinking, Sustaina-bullshit rewards those who want a reassuring little pat on
the back and cup of organic cocoa rather than more substantive actions.

T is for the Trauma of Thanksgiving. T is also for
Therapy.

U is for Unless you plan to bring your own food to
Thanksgiving, you can expect a dinner of cranberry sauce with a side of defensiveness
and a generous dollop of guilt-tripping. Okay, you'll get those extras even if you do bring your own food.

V is for Vermont: Weren’t we supposed to have a vegan
commune there by now? Near a mountain or a river or something and we’d all eat
massaged kale salads all day? Let’s get on that already.

W is for “Well, I was a vegetarian for ten years but
then I read that the Dalai Lama eats meat
so…”

X is for X-Ray vision, which you don’t possess but you
can still see the layers of subtext and insinuation buried within the offhand
remark of your cousin that she “doesn’t think it’s right to mistreat animals
but there are more important issues in the world and it's nothing to get all crazy about.”

Y is for Yay! Your new officemate just put up a Heifer
International calendar where you can see it every day! And your manager is
pressuring you to buy candy bars for her son’s elementary school fundraiser! And
you have to meet an important client for lunch next week and he’s on the Paleo
diet! YAAAAAY!

Z is for Zen. We’ll get there one day. Or we won’t.
Whatever. Is that Zen enough?

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Over the weekend, we saw Lincoln. I am always embarrassed by how
little I know of this critical time in U.S. history, so shot through with
upheaval. After seeing the film, I was especially struck by the character of
Thaddeus Stevens, someone I knew nothing about, played with a fiery but
believable zeal by Tommy Lee Jones.

Thaddeus Stevens was
chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means committee and a key Radical
Republican; by all accounts, he was consumed with such a profound and visceral
contempt for slavery, roiled by the thought of it, that he made it his life’s
work to eradicate it. Today, it’s easy to take an emphatic moral position
against slavery: is there even any reasonable counter-argument? In the 1860s,
though, with much of the country in ruins, no end in sight to the horrific
combat and hundreds of thousands of deaths already tallied, it was not such an
easy political stance, nor was racial equality considered a given. This was a
pivotal time in American history, one where the United States could have easily
fissured, but President Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens (among others) remained
deeply committed to getting the 13th Amendment ratified on the
Constitution.

Imagine the pressure.
Imagine the misgivings. Imagine the nights of sleepless anguish.

There were many times in
watching the film that I saw clear parallels to the uphill battle vegan
activists face in our struggle to have 98% of the population consider the
rights of others on moral grounds. There seem to be some obvious similarities
to the obstacles abolitionists faced. For example, those who wanted to maintain
the status quo depicted the anti-slavery campaigners as ridiculous, dangerous
and worse. White people were born with the right to own slaves as part of their
natural prerogative, after all, ordained by God. (Even many of those who didn’t
keep slaves still didn’t want to believe that slaves were as human as they
were.) Similarly, vegan advocates are often characterized as ridiculous,
dangerous and worse by those who want to maintain the status quo of animal
exploitation and use. Further, people of faith and atheists alike consider that
it’s a given that animals are ours to eat and use as we see fit. Whether they
say that this was what God decreed or they say, well, sorry but that’s the way
things are (in so many words), the bottom line is the same: the animals are ours
and we have every right to them. Interestingly, some justifications were also
similar, for example, the attitude among anti-abolitionists that they were
doing it for the good of the slaves, a kind of benevolence: what would all
those feeble-minded slaves do if they were suddenly freed? They would not be
able to fend for themselves, to feed themselves. Today, we hear the same flawed
rationalization for maintaining animal agriculture. If we no longer killed animals
for food, they would not only overwhelm our resources and land, they wouldn’t
be able to care for themselves.

I am not one who likes to
compare historic or contemporary tragedies to each other and say that one is
the equivalent of the other. I believe that this cheapens the suffering and
diminishes the individuality of those who have been oppressed. When a sentient
being is in anguish, the suffering is uniquely experienced by that individual.
For this reason, I don’t like saying what the animals experience is like
slavery or the Holocaust. This is not because “they’re just animals” but
because I think that doing so over-simplifies the specific anguish the
individuals suffered, whether human or otherwise. I do think that there are parallels, though, with
slavery: the concepts of ownership, of sovereignty, of emphasizing the powerful
majority’s “right” to the entitlements they want to preserve versus the right
of those not so endowed to simply live their own lives. In short, the chilling mentality of exceptionalism.

The essential questions we
have to ask of ourselves are also eerily similar: Where do we draw the line in
regards to another’s rights and why do we draw them there? Are the relatively
small forfeitures we make in order to end our role in harming another really
tantamount to giving up our supposed rights? Is something truly a right or did
we inherit it due to existing power structures that unjustly favor us?

The unfair and unnecessary brutality
against animals is not going to end unless the world begins to think in moral
terms about something as seemingly benign as ordering a chicken salad sandwich.
In the 1860s and before, it was considered laughable to think of the lives of
the slaves working the field and the moral implications of saying that another
being belongs to someone else. Today, we are told the same about the animals people like to eat and exploit. Why? To live with honesty and integrity, there are times when we
have to make uncomfortable reckonings with ourselves.

I truly believe that this
is our social justice movement of the day. Our blatant and unspoken acceptance of
the human domination of other animals is something that the overwhelming
majority of people don’t want to face. If some comparisons make us feel
uncomfortable, though, that may be a signal that it is something to explore. Within
this discomfort, we can reveal a painful truth: there are more similarities
than differences between the mentality that allows for slavery and the
mentality that allows for eating animals than many of us would care to admit.